Australia Day or Invasion Day?Don't get me wrong, I'm all for moving forward. I just believe it's hard to move forward when our history is ‘whitewashed’. There was a long, drawn-out war in this country, a war just as tragic and voilent as the displacement of the native americans. Our native people aren't even acknowledged for putting up a damn good fight (which they did), instead they are treated as if they were timid primitives who simply gave in.No wonder young Coories are so angry.No Australian Govt can ever acknowledge the black wars, nor say Sorry though, the legal implications that opens up… (phew)Technically Australia was uninhabited at the time of ‘conquest’…Mind you, the British royal family has never signed our constitution either, so technically our entire government in an illegal entity by international law.

Ugh. self flagellation is ok… but as I say, colonialism is part of the human experience. He, it's horrible for those who come off on the bad end, but really, I'm not sure where it hasn't happened. Best to try and understand the totality of the concept. Getting all hot under the collar over the idea that it happened anywhere specific is beyond inane.

As to the experience of native people in Australia specifically, that's a different thing. Move on from colonialism and accept it has part of one of the facts of civilisation and nationhood eternally, globally, universally, but all the aboriginal peoples of Australia do deserve their full recognition. :)

For the Aussie constitution, nationhood etc… Beware Nationalism. THAT is a force worse than colonialism, leads to much more evil.

Cartoon Professor thinking about the past is counterproductive. I know that it was horrible for the Indigenous Australians but that was in the past. We don't still punish the Germans for what happened in WW2. If we do there would be no progress in the world. Fogetting the mistakes of past would allow us to make the same mistakes, however as each generation comes along the mistakes of the past should not continue to be held against them.

I would hate to be punished for the mistakes my grandparents made let alone being punished for the mistakes of my great-great-great-grandparents.

If you want the mistakes of the past to be not happen, BUILD A TIME MACHINE AND STOP IT!

I don't agree with that either. Beating yourself up over the symbolism or the rights and wrongs of past events and assiging blame IS counter-productive, but they should always be acknowledged, accepted, and learned from!

What is always more important is dealing with the present. To do that you NEED to understand past causes.

I didn't mean don't think about the past. I mean don't focus on the past without it allowing you to move forward. We can't apologise for other people, sure the people of that time made a mistake…a mistake that I can't erase. It's a terrible thing that happened but it happened to a different group of people by a different group of people. All we can do is move forward to unity, the people stuck in the past won't have that option will they?

I think jurbas is onto something, i believe we all need to move forward, reconciliation or not, throwing money around is no way to right the wrongs of the past, instead of apologizing to the “stolen generation” which there is little proof over, and giving massive cash handouts, i believe the government should sink the money into rehab centers , hospitals etc to help the indiginous peaople that are in trouble today

Wah? Little proof? I have an uncle by marriage who that happened to :(And one of my teachers back in highschool as well.

If people think an apology will help them then I think that's fine We should give it! ^^ And “giving a cash hand out” is nothing, poor old native peoples of Australia make up about one or 2 percent of the whole population so it's not going to break the bank ;)

but those that want cash handouts are not those that were actually affected by it generally. this may be an overstatement but it seems from the indeginous people I know of they accept that it was a different group of people.

That would be like asking the German or Japanese people of today to pay for the mistakes made in World War II. It was a different generation, those living survivors of that generation(if there were any and I don't think there are but I'm not too sure don't quote me on that) should apologise to the people of that generation.